Wolfsburg – Germany – During The 2b AHEAD Future Congress, one of the most important business events of Europe’s innovation, SITAEL was the only company awarded in Germany with the 2b AHEAD Innovation Award 2018 thanks to the newly developed RAM-EP electric thruster technology. The prestigious prize is traditionally bestowed on those visionaries whose innovative business models have fundamentally changed the development of their industry. In 2017 the Award was given to Bo Ewald, President of D-Wave Systems as a representative of all quantum-computing pioneers. In 2016 Dirk Ahlborn, CEO of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies received it for the revolution of mobility.

The 2b AHEAD Innovation Award 2018 was assigned to SITAEL for the development and testing, over the last two years, of the disruptive RAM-EP technology, which was judged of major scientific importance and novelty. The jury deemed that this paradigm changing technology will revolutionize the way we access and work in space; thrusters that can work by ingesting atmospheric gases without the need to use onboard propellants, will enable vehicles to orbit at very low altitudes (150 – 160 km), effectively creating new hybrid concepts intermediate between satellites and high-altitude platforms.

The possibility to orbit at very low altitudes, as enabled by SITAEL’s RAM-EP technology, will effectively contribute to turn these scenarios into reality. This adds to the efforts that SITAEL is making to develop innovative electric propulsion concepts, also in the framework of space exploration and space transportation programs aiming at expanding the human presence in space in the forthcoming decades.

The Award was collected by Prof. Mariano Andrenucci, SITAEL’s Head of Space Propulsion.